One by One
by TENNIS-w-GUITARS
Summary: Life doesn't stop for any one. Blurbs by Zuko about every death he's had to live with.


Summary: Blurbs by Zuko about every death he's had to live with.

WARNING: Okay, this is sad, and i practically cried while i wrote it. Like really, it is hard to find a happy ending in this, so if that is what you're looking for i suggest you look elsewhere.

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**One by One**

**_Azula-_**

She killed herself. She took a pair a shears someone left unattended at a crafts table and did herself in. The staff was new, as was the facility meant to help those clinically insane. I was just talking with Aang when one of my servants came in to deliver the news. In the end, she still had all the power. She won. Azula still made me feel helpless.

**_Ozai-_**

My father died in his prison cell after refusing to eat the poorly cooked prison means for three weeks. His body was practically a shell when we found him, all skin stretched taunt over strong bones. I just sunk down in front of his cell and stared for hours. That skeleton wounded me so much, and now his pulse had stopped. It was such a weird thing to think of, and more than anything, it made me furious. Uncle came in to collect me, but he could not bring himself to look at his brother, so shrunken and so gone.

**_Uncle Iroh-_**

On the day that my Uncle Iroh died, I was at a meeting from dawn till dusk. He was an older man by then, and he died serenely with a cup of steaming tea by his bedside. I owe my whole life to him. I collapsed into the chair next to him and began to speak about my day to a dead body. The guards had thought I went insane. Luckily, Aang flew in on Appa that night and helped prepare a funeral. Katara held my hand, and Toph built a statue of Uncle for people to walk by through the doorway, on their way to me to pay their respects. She said she knew what he looked like because she once touched his face, and my wife described the rest for her to mold. Aang's kids, so young at the time, and rambunctious as their nature was, stood uncharacteristically quiet behind Suki and Katara. Sokka didn't crack one joke the entire time.

**_Avatar Aang-_**

It figures that he was the first of our group to go. He was the most calming man I ever had the pleasure to know. He was older, but not old enough. I was in my study when news reached me of his imminent death. I raced over to republic city as fast as I could. Thank god, for once I was fast enough. Everyone was waiting outside his room: Sokka, Tenzin, Kya, Bumi, Toph, everyone. Katara was by his bedside. We all took turns saying goodbye, in the subtlest way possible because even we didn't want to face the truth then. I looked Aang in the eyes, his everlasting wide grey eyes, and was surprised to see happiness in them. "Why are you looking at me like that?" my face must have said, because Aang's spoke with a gravely, husky tone, saying " I'm so happy your here, Zuko." I didn't know what to say, so when Katara let go of his hand, I grasped it. There is something not many people know: when a loved one is in pain, and is dying, you want them to go already. Aang winced when he shifted to look at me, and I wanted death to sweep across his face already. Aang just looked at me, and said "I'm gunna miss our stupid fire dance." Then he went into a coughing fit, and Katara gave us a look that made us excuse ourselves. The door thudded shut, sealing Aang away forever. But before it closed completely, I caught his big, innocent, grey eyes staring into mine for a moment, as if trying to tell me something, before he shifted and offered an upset Katara a weak smile. Of course Aang would attempt to soothe her pain, in spite of his own. The day after Aang died, as he died that night in his sleep, the sunrise was incredibly beautiful. And we all thought that the wind rustling his favorite tree in the yard outside his window, blowing around white and blue flower petals into our faces, was his childish way of saying goodbye.

**_Appa-_**

The damn sky bison had a family and kids. Little mixed flying bisons that somehow, for some strange reason, loved me. Soon there were hundreds of little Appas everywhere- still a rare breed, but no longer so close to extinction. Appa was old, and his fur was tough, haggard, greying. I saw the animal last at Aang's funeral, where the bison jumped on me, blubbering and groaning. Appa fell asleep after a short little trip, and didn't wake up. He died within the same month as Aang.

**_Momo-_**

Momo followed quickly after too. Of course, he took part in repopulating his own kind before hand, the damn lemur. He fell asleep alone next to a large mango tree, with a half eater fruit by his side. The skies were clear, as Momo rested lazily in the shade, avoiding the hot summer day for the last time. To say Sokka was devastates would be an understatement.

**_Toph Bei Fong-_**

Toph was in fact missing for quiet some time. She was presumed dead, though her body was not found until about three months later. Taken by criminals and beaten to death, Toph donned her metallic suit of armor in order to shield herself, but died in there from her injuries. Dirt and earth lay crumpled around her. She died standing. At the funeral, Lin was crying in Tenzin's arms and Katara was trying not to sob so dramatically. Toph's husband sat stoic in the front row- for a man that was almost the opposite of Toph, all round corners and soft edges, he adapted her tough exterior that day, staring at his wife's beautifully crafted metal casket. Sokka held onto his sister's shoulder and I sat unmoving, remembering a girl who use to tell me that her parents didn't understand her, and I realized then that no one did, besides her husband. Toph would have been so disappointed by seeing people cry like that at her funeral. She would have turned her nose up from such open displays of emotion. So on that day, for her, I didn't cry at all.

**_Sokka-_**

He was one of the hardest deaths to live with. He got very sick, very fast. Katara was a mess- a healer who could not heal felt pretty useless. He stayed in the fire nation for treatment, and therefore stayed in my palace. I visited him every day, but it got harder and harder to see him. He began to forget things. Where his boomerang was, how his father had died years ago. Then, he began forgetting people all together. Katara was away when it first began getting so hard. He didn't recognize me one day when I walked in. "Who are you!?" He boomed, finding the strength to struggle out of bed and reach for a butter knife by the table where he ate his breakfast in bed. His wild blue eyes searched around the room and saw the fire nation's sigil on the wall. "Fire Nation? Have I been taken?... Let me out right now! I need to get back to my village! Fire nation scum!" he trusted his knife at me, and as I backed away I knocked a lamp off a table. He flinched at the noise, and then lowered his knife. "Zuko?" His foggy blue eyes focused back on me. "Heh. Haha. Where am I?" He asked, jokingly. But I couldn't bring myself to laugh. He did, though. That was something that was hard. Sokka laughed through the entire failure of a treatment, chuckled at Katara's attempts to fix him. When he came back from his forgetful episodes he would always crack a joke. He often times forgot that Aang had died, and asked for him, but we didn't have the heart to tell Sokka the story again and again. It was a long process, too. Sokka had been staying in the palace for more than a year when he finally died of a heart attack. Katara told me later that Sokka was mid-laugh when he suddenly clutched at his heart. She tried to ease his pain. By the way she talked about it, I knew that she couldn't take away his pain in the end. The funny thing is, is that Sokka's funeral was open casket. A smirk rested on his face. Unless you knew him really well, I don't think you'd be able to notice it. Katara told me later that they didn't have to adjust that, that he died with that smirk on. I laughed a little, for I didn't even think that was possible. Though I guess it made sense that Sokka would find a way to smirk and laugh at the world one last time.

**_Katara-_**

Who knew someone once so tall could shrink down to such a little old lady, with grey hair as white as sooty snow. I visited her years before her death, at a compound in the water tribe. Snow was everywhere, and I burned it away with my heels. I still hated the white slosh; it still chilled me to the bone. A young girl was with her, with blue eyes and a fire in her so fierce; she bended water through the air, shot fire from her palms. She lifted the earth beneath the snow, and though the movements were clumsy, I saw power there. I had not yet met the new avatar, in fact, I was avoiding it. By giving away my seat as fire lord to my granddaughter, I did not have to deal with this new hero. I was grateful for that avoidance. Instead, my wife and I traveled to Angel Island, and sometimes, we visited the capitol to visit old friends. My wife was settling into the compound when I went to look for Katara. Katara held a look of wonder in her eyes as she watched the girl, but there was a sadness too. The little girl saw me, and dropped her water to the floor. Katara looked up, and her eyes shinned. Her smile was still as bright as I remember. I stepped forth, and barely opened my arms before she rushed into them. Her hands slid around me and I held her. The little avatar girl looked confused, but walked away from us and went inside. Katara pushed herself away and looked me in the eyes.

"Zuko, it's been too long. Friend's don't go this long without seeing each other."

My only reply was "I've never been a good friend." She shook her head in clear disagreement, but before she could refute me, I changed the subject.

"Was that- the avatar?"

"Who, Korra? Yes, that was she." Silence stretched on as Katara began walking to sit down on the steps, and I joined her.

"Is she... Is she anything like-"

"No. No, not at all. Not a speck like him." Her face was unreadable. And so was mine. My heart did feel a little sad though, knowing this.

"But then she is, Zuko." A tint of wonder made it's way into her voice, and then her eyes.

"Sometimes she says something, or displays a certain mannerism, not often, but sometimes, and then she has this presence some days, so rarely, but sometimes, and I feel like he's right there. Like I'm talking to him. It passes as quick as it comes, and it's not exactly the same as him, but it's there, Zuko."

"Would you like to meet her?"

I shook my head. "No, no." Katara nodded her head in understanding. We let the silence play out.

"I hate the snow." I say, and she just laughs, "I know, Zuko, but I love it."

Katara died in her sleep, years later, and a few months after her fourth grandchild was born. The new avatar was well into her twenties, almost a master of all the elements- when I heard that air is the most difficult to master, I laughed the most I had in years.

Katara died peacefully, and her funeral was beautiful, fit for someone like her. The sound of rushing water and rustling winds was ever constant; and the sunrise at her burial, peeking over the blue mountains, orange and bright, was so perfect. I said a few choice words to her gravestone after everyone had left, and then visited all my friends' gravesites, as they are all beside hers. It's sad, being the final member looking on at their plots of earth. It's hard.

I love my wife and kids, and my grandkids. But to be the last of an amazing group of friends…. I didn't know before how hard it is to go on in life when you have lost the people you shared life so fully with. It just figures that I would be the last to go.

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A/N:: Sorry. I just spat this out and decided to publish it. Wow, that was painful. This is kinda just how i imagined it.


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